'Three Coins in the Fountain'

'Three Coins in the Fountain' is an old-fashioned romantic film about three American secretaries that throw their coins into a fountain in Rome and hope for romance.... The film follows three women on their hunt for husbands in Rome. There ‘s nothing much about the story (which is not bad at all) The best thing about this movie is the beautiful cinematography of Italy and a popular title song sung by Frank Sinatra. All major stars at the time including Very Gay Clifton Web, Beautiful Jean Peters and Dorothy Mcguire ,French and Italian heartthrob Louis Jordan, Rossano Brazzi this is Maggie Mcnamara second movie right after her Oscar performance in “the Moon is blue”

Three Coin in the Fountain is No.10 gross movie in 1954 Directed by Fox own house Director Jean Negulesco ( Humoresque , Johnny Belinda, Titanic, How to Marry Millionaire ,Daddy Long leg,The Best of everything) Nominated for 3 Academy award including Best Picture and won for Cinematography and Original Song.

DID YOU KNOW?? *

• The working titles of this film were We Believe in Love and There's No Place Like Rome. Before the picture's opening credits, Frank Sinatra, who is uncredited, sings the title song over a montage of scenic shots of Italy and Rome's many fountains. The song, which became one of Sinatra's standards.
• According to March 1953 Hollywood Reporter news item, the picture was originally scheduled to be shot in black and white, and Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Tierney, Vittorio Gassman and Jeanne Crain were set to co-star with Clifton Webb and Louis Jourdan.
• According to news items and studio publicity, the majority of the film was shot on location in Rome, Venice and the village of Merano in Italy. Studio publicity noted that some interiors had to be shot at the Twentieth Century-Fox lot in Los Angeles, which offered better lighting.
• Fox produced another version of Secondari's book, entitled The Pleasure Seekers,Also directed by Jean Negulesco and starring Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley and Gene Tierney

* From AFI Library

AFI'S 100 Years...100 Movies -- 10th Anniversary Edition

Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman ( will host AFI'S 100 Years...100 Movies -- 10th Anniversary Edition, a new entertainment special counting down the greatest movies of all time, to be broadcast Wednesday, June 20 (8:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. During the broadcast, the confidential list of the 100 greatest American films of all time will be revealed by some of Hollywood's biggest stars.

In this 10th annual installment of the Emmy Award-winning series, both classic favorites and newly eligible films released from 1996 to 2006 will be considered. New entries to the ballot include titles such as American Beauty, The Aviator, Brokeback Mountain, "Lord of the Rings," The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan, Sideways, Traffic and "Titantic."
Did You Know??
To compile the final list, AFI distributed a ballot with 400 nominated movies to a jury of over 1,500 leaders in the creative community, including film artists (directors, screenwriters, actors, editors, cinematographers), critics and historians. And I was One of them......!!!!!!

Autumn Leaves ****

One of my favorite movie theme is the older woman with a younger lover (Sunset Blvd.“ and “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone) Joan Crawford play A lonely spinster is seduced into a romance with a man 20 years younger. Once married, their lives come unhinged when the young man begins to have a psychotic breakdown.Fine performances from Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson give this taught drama more emotional resonance than might be expected from the plot summary. Crawford is superb - all huge eyes and trembling lips, she makes the relationship with Robertson's character believable and moving and also very real. Their characters are clearly very close sexually; whether he's nuzzling her neck as they dance or they're nuzzling in bed, Burt and Millie are obviously turned on by each other and sincerely like each other. Burt's boyish charm lightens Millie considerably, just as her common sense and responsiveness to him give him much-needed assurance. Very Romantic but the same time Robert Aldrich direction (what ever happen to baby jane?, Hush Hush sweet charlotte) give a movie creepy feel.

Joan Really like working with Robertson she said “It was an intense and happy working relationship.... (I'm proud to say I coached him from all the research I'd done for “Possessed.“) Good story, believable characters, good script, good acting, consequently a good film...”


Also When Miss Crawford uttered that famous line, “And you, you slut!“ it made my day..Totally.

Joan Crawford A movie star

"Joan Crawford behaved like a star. Some do, some don't...You know, when Joan came on the set, somebody came on the set."

Rosalind Russell

"My first impression of Joan Crawford was of glamour. Glamour had nothing to do with aloofness or temperment, it had to do with friendliness, tremendous vitality and hard work, ambition and constant desire to improve her work, and to get knowledgeable about things that were

important to the work."

James Stewart

"Joan was a star in every sense of the word. She didn't remind you of it in any particular way. You just knew it. And you didn't think any less of her for it."

Henry Fonda

"Joan Crawford, as much as I dislike the lady, is a star."

Humphrey Bogart

What a star!!

More ASTA

LAST month I introduced you to the famous dog from the movie 'THE THIN MAN" here is some favorite clip of Asta.

"The Thin Man" was one of the most popular films of 1934, inspired five sequels, and was nominated for four Oscars (best picture, actor, direction and screenplay)

Asta

Asta (born Skippy) was a Wire-Haired Fox Terrier best known for his acting work in the 1934 screwball comedy The Thin Man. He was trained by Frank Weatherwax and owner Henry East. He later appeared in The Awful Truth (as Mr. Smith), Bringing Up Baby (as George, the bone-hiding pup of Katharine Hepburn), and Topper Takes A Trip (as Mr. Atlas). Due to the enormous popularity of Asta, interest in pet terriers skyrocketed.

As a character in the movie The Thin Man, Asta was the playful pet dog of Nick and Nora Charles, tugging them around town on his walks, hiding from danger, and sniffing out dead corpses. The character later appeared in the sequels After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home, Song of the Thin Man, as well as the 1950s television show The Thin Man. Although Skippy played Asta in the original film, it is believed multiple terriers were used for the sequels, and he wasn't involved in the television show.

Interestingly, the original character of Asta in Dashiell Hammett's book of the The Thin Man was not a Wire-Haired Fox Terrier, but a Schnauzer.

Asta has his own fansite Visit http://www.iloveasta.com/

Oyster & Snails

Queer or not??


In the bathing scene from the1960 film Spartacus, the Roman senator Crassius (Laurence Olivier) is discussing with his young slave Antoninus (Tony Curtis) how to treat women, when he starts talking about food:

Crassius: Do you eat oysters?

Antoninus: Yes.

Snails?

No.

Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral?

No, master.

Of course not. It’s all a matter of taste, isn’t it?

Yes, master.

And taste is not the same as appetite and therefore not a question of morals, is it?

It could be argured so, master.

Um, that’ll do. My robe, Antoninus. Ah, my taste … includes both oysters and snails.

Just " Drop The Name"

Ethel Merman
Mary Astor and Ethel Walters
Mary Pickford And Ethel Barrymore



"FRANK Sinatra , ALBERT Schweitzer, INGRID Bergman, NOEL Coward,GENE Kelly,OSCAR Levant lalalala..."

BRIGITTE Bardot and JEAN Cocteau , MARILYN Monroe, VINCENTE Minnelli

FRED Astaire,RENE" Clair,JOSE" Ferrer, The former GRACE Kelly

LYNN Fontanne and DANNY MAnn and DEBORAH Kerr.....IRVING Berlin and RIN TIN TIN

DANNY Kaye and DORIS Day and PASTERNAK (Vivien Leigh*)

HEMMINGWAY and Prince RAINIER , MORAN and MACK (TALLULAH B.*)

IRWIN shaw and EVERLYN Waugh and CARY Grant RORY Calhoun And Rin tin toon..

BERNIE Baruch and King FAROUK ,ALISTAIR Cooke LIZZIE and EDDIE

LUCILLE BAlle And LAUREN Bacall ,VIVIEN Leigh , ROS RUSSELL and FREDDIE


ARTHUR Freed and SAMMY Snead and IRVIN Lazar,
ANNA MAY WONG (Leslie Carron*)and Wrong TONG TONG


"Flew down to Cannes to get a tan then simply ran to dear portofino"
"Sain Tropez just turned me grey Because just night and day I lived on just vino"
"Stayed With Fritz at Biarritz the palyground of kings Glamorous sights"
"LiKe Brooklyn Heights..!!"

"My Christian DIORI wore then tore Got fitted for a new BALENCIAGA"
" I like CHANEL , She wears so well. As time will tell her clothes are a saga"
"VALENTINO"Swhere I've been I love all her things...Things with good line."

" Like things from KLEIN's" I do all my shopping there with Mary and Ethel"
"Mary and Ethel WHO??"
"Mary Schwartz and Ethel Hotchkiss"

KEENAN Wynn -Rin tin tin
SOPHIA Loren - Ren ten ten
ALY Khan -RahnTahn Tahn
RAYMOND Massey -Lassie
That's the way you play the game Drop that name...

Mel Ferrer!!

(* alternate version)

"out of the past" (1947)***1/2

If you are a fan of film nior you can't miss "out of the past" A terrific film noir starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, and Rhonda Fleming; director Jacques Tourneur's best film? Written by Geoffrey Homes aka Daniel Mainwaring, it was added to the National Film Registry in 1991.

Listen my favorite pod cast " out of thr past .. investigating film noir "by Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards Here

Laura

"Laura is the face in the misty light Footsteps that you hear down the hall The laugh that floats on a summer night That you can never quite recall And you see Laura on a train that is passing through Those eyes how familiar they seem She gave your very first kiss to you That was Laura But she's only a dream"

• One of the film's most durable legacies was its theme song "Laura," composed over one weekend by David Raksin. Otto Preminger had originally wanted to use Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady."
  
  
• The haunting theme melody was inspired by a "Dear David" letter that composer David Raksin received from his wife. The lyrics were added later by Johnny Mercer.
• Laura Was voted No. 7 -AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores

highschool reunion

Sorry Wrong number (Radio Drama)

Lucille Fletcher's Sorry, Wrong Number, written in 1943 (with Agnes Moorehead in mind for the lead role of Leona Stevenson) and first broadcast on radio's Suspense anthology series in 1943, is the story of a bedridden invalid terrorized after accidentally overhearing a murder plot on the telephone (click here to read the original radio script). The program was so popular it was repeated seven more times over the 20 year run of Suspense, with Agnes Moorehead reprising her role each time.

Click to listen to the show..

sorry_wrong_number...

Did you know??

Gene Tierney was not the only famous person who had undergone ECT (Electroconvulsive therapy aka. electroshock therapy)




.

• Clara Bow, American actress
• Richard Brautigan, American writer and poet
• Dick Cavett, TV host. In 1992 he wrote in People, "In my case, ECT was miraculous. My wife was dubious, but when she came into my room afterward, I sat up and said, 'Look who's back among the living.' It was like a magic wand."
• Kitty Dukakis, wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis and author of Shock, a book chronicling her experiences with ECT.
• Thomas Eagleton, American vice-presidential hopeful and running mate of George McGovern. Eagleton lost the nomination in 1972 when it was discovered he had undergone ECT. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver.
• Frances Farmer, American cinema actress
• Janet Frame, New Zealand writer who was wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia. Many of her works contain semi-autobiographical accounts of her treatment
• Judy Garland, American film actress and singer
• Ernest Hemingway, American author, committed suicide shortly after ECT treatment at the Mayo Clinic in 1961. He is reported to have said to his biographer A.E. Hotchner, "Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient...."
• Vladimir Horowitz, pianist
• Ken Kesey, American author
• Vivien Leigh, British actress
• Oscar Levant, pianist
• Robert Lowell, American poet and writer
• Mervyn Peake, English artist and writer
• Sylvia Plath, American poet
• Cole Porter, American composer and musician
• Dory Previn, American poet, writer and lyricist
• Paul Robeson, American actor
• Lou Reed, rock musician
• Yves Saint Laurent, French fashion designer. He underwent treatment after serving in the French military.

Christmas With Joan Crawford

1949 radio show "Christmas Eve at home with Joan Crawford and her children"

WIFE Vs.SECRETARY .... SECRETARY Vs. WIFE

Wife Vs.Secretary (1936) is a good movie and fans of old movies will enjoy seeing Gable, Harlow, and Loy share the screen.

In this story, Clark Gable plays a president of a publishing empire, who is in love with his wife, played by Myrna Loy. Gable has a secretary, played by Jean Harlow, who becomes an indispensable part of his company.Gable and Harlow's relationship is perfectly innocent, but neither can see how their secret conversations. PLus their closed door meetings are raising everyone's eyebrow (Myrna Loy's included). Loy's character first has no question about Gable and Harlow working late at night until her friends and family member put seeds of doubt on Gable and Harlow's relationship. Even though she tries to put faith and trust in their relationship but situations put her trust into doubt.

Did you know??

According to a news item in Hollywood Reporter William Powell was announced as the male lead in the picture.

This was the first film made by Loy after her return to work at M-G-M following a highly publicized salary dispute with M-G-M ($250,000 extra Bonus from Mr. Myer for returning to screen) .


Jean Harlow'd begged for a role that didn't require spouting slang and modeling lingerie. She even convinced them to darken her hair a shade, in hopes of toning down that brash image.

Myrna Loy recalls working with Jean Harlow and the rest of the cast on Wife vs. Secretary "Jean, supposedly the other woman, stayed very proper, while I had one foot in bed throughout. That's the sexiest wife I've ever played"

Daytime wife (1939)
Linda Darnell and Tyrone Power are married, and she suspects, against her will, that he's cheating on her with his secretary.(in this movie He 's really cheating) if I were married to someone who looked like Tyrone Power, I wouldn't let him out of my sight. Anyway, She takes a job as a secretary to find out why a man is drawn to a woman other than his wife. She's able to deftly turn the tables on Power when he's involved in a business deal with her boss (Warren William) and they all wind up at a nightclub - William, Darnell, Power, and his secretary, played by Wendy Barrie.


Did you know??

According to a Twentieth Century-Fox press release, Zanuck was so impressed by Darnell's performance that he decided to give her credit over the title, though it was only her second film.

Other press releases claim that filming was scheduled to conclude on Friday, the 13th, but associate producer Raymond Griffith insisted that it end the next day, for superstitious reasons

White Christmas (1954)

White Christmas is one of those great movies that never get boring even after you've seen them every year for a million years.I watched this movie multiple times every holiday season for as long as I can remember, and every time I find something new I love. Bing Crosby is a wonderful straight man to the enchanting antics of Danny Kaye, and his version of the title song will last forever.. This movie is a must-see for anyone who appreciates "old movies", regardless of whether or not it is the holiday season.








Did you know?

• Who doesn't know and love that song? Irving Berlin wrote it in 1940. Bing Crosby first performed it on December 25, 1941, on his CBS radio show. In May 1942 he recorded it, and in August of that year, he could be seen singing it on screen in the hit movie Holiday Inn. Soon it was at the top of the charts, where it remained for eleven weeks, and in early 1943 it won the Oscar® for Best Song. It hit #1 again in 1945 and 1947 and went on to hold the record as all-time bestselling single for over 50 years. (The song that finally knocked it down to #2? Elton John's 1997 recording of "Candle in the Wind," with lyrics rewritten to honor the late Princess Diana.)
  
• The original idea was to reunite Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby, as they had been successful in Holiday Inn (1942). Astaire refused, as he had "retired" at the time, so the part was reworked for Donald O'Connor. O'Connor pulled out, and the part was reworked for Danny Kaye.
  
• According to author David Leopold (Irving Berlin's Show Business), Kaye asked for a huge paycheck - $200,000 plus ten percent of the gross - never expecting that it would be accepted. But Paramount realized that waiting for O'Connor would cost them about that much, and they bit the bullet
• White Christmas it was the highest-grossing film of 1954 ($12 million); it was the biggest hit of director Michael Curtiz's career; co-stars Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye were ranked at the time as the #1 and #3 box office stars in the country; and "White Christmas" was already the most successful song in American history .
• Paramount chose White Christmas to be its first movie produced in VistaVision, the studio's widescreen answer to CinemaScope
• Even though Betty was the elder of the Haynes sisters, Rosemary Clooney was actually seven years younger than Vera-Ellen in real life.
  
  

It came from beneath the sea (1955)

Home Sweet Home

From top left

• Jeanette MacDonald nicknamed her home "Twin Gables"
• Marion Davies at her Santa Monica beach house
• Carole Lombard at the house she lived in before she married Clark Gable
• The Famous "Pickfair", the mansion built by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks
• Joan Crawford lived in this Brentwood mansion for many years
• Clara Bow was known to throw many wild parties at her bungalow in Beverly Hills

From http://www.classicactresses.com

“Architecture in Film” festival

Watch the “Architecture in Film” festival on TCM every Wednesday in October starting October 4 at 8 PM.

PIN UP GIRL

refers to the most sexually-attractive star-actresses of an era, who would be popularized in seductive poses usually semi-clad - in pictures, calendars, or mass-produced posters that were usually literally
"pinned-up", usually with thumbtacks, on bedroom walls, the insides of lockers,
and so forth; this practice started especially amongst GI servicemen away from home during military combat who pined for the girl-back-home'; related terms
are cover girl (for magazine covers), model or cheesecake

Pin-up girl of all pin-up girls, Betty Grable was the favorite among US soldiers during World War II. Starting chorus girl when she was barely a teenager, Betty proved to be a gifted singer, dancer and actress. She made over 40 films during her career, including "How To Marry A Millionaire" with Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall. Long before Mary Hart, Betty's legs were insured with Lloyds of London for a reputed $1 million. During her heyday, Betty was both the highest paid star in Hollywood and one of the wealthiest women in all of America.

Rita Hayworth was one of the most popular pin-up queens of World War II. Second only to Betty Grable, who was also number 1 at the box office. It may not have been an image Rita particularly relished, but when the war came along, there was no stopping GI's coast to coast and all over the world from plastering Rita's image on everything from barracks walls to bombers planes.

This was the most famous Hayworth pin-up picture. It was taken by Bob Landry and first appeared in a 1941 issue of Life magazine. It proceeded to become one of the most instantly recognizable pictures ever taken. Helen Gurley Brown, Editor-In-Chief of Cosmopolitan said of the picture "I never saw a better 'girl' picture, and that includes about a million from Cosmopolitan!"